The pleasures of writing, the passions of writing, the pains of writing. Writing brings us to blogging. To read the written words of others. To carry something away from it. To be moved. To laugh.

Remembering where you came from.

On the road to Blue Earth, Minnesota

Using it to know where your going to.

Continue east my friend, or you’ll run out of road.

And crossing that bridge when you come to it. You know I had to go there. 😉

One of my favorite lines in literature came from the L. Frank Baum’s book, Ozma of Oz, published in 1907.

The set up: Dorothy is transported back to Oz, almost. She, a mechanical man named Tiktok and a hen named Billina find themselves in the land of Ev outside Oz’s borders. They meet the vain Princess Langwidere who is “ruling” the land of Ev because the rest of the royal family has been kidnapped by the Gnome king.

With the use of a magic mirror, any woman who is attractive is beheaded by Langwidere so she may wear their head on any given day she chooses.

When she changes her head to meet Dorothy and crew, Baum used the following line, “By the aid of the mirror she put on the head.”

What if that line had been written today. What if the line read instead, “With the aid of the mirror she took off her head.”

Would it make centipedes crawl up your ten-year-old spine? Going beyond the measure of the original well written line.

The pleasures of playing with words.

And the bonus material. One more snippet of Roger Crawford, Lagniappe: Going beyond full measure.

Back to special edition tradition, Diana Ross, would you please take us out with “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?”

Keep on tending your story soil for your fertile grounds. Magic occurs, but not by chance. 🙂

Categories

Writer’s Toolbox

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 466 other followers

Advertisements

On Photographs, Etc.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts, photographs and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Tracy Perkins, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.